Nobel Literature laureate Herta Muller, centre, of Germany, is surrounded by her fellow laureates after receiving the Prize at at the Concert Hall, Stockholm, Sweden, Thursday Dec. 10, 2009. To the left of Muller is American medicine laureates Carol Greider and Jack Szostak, and to the right American Economics laureates Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson. (AP Photo/Scanpix Sweden, Jonas Ekstromer) — AP

Nobel Literature laureate Herta Muller, centre, of Germany, is surrounded by her fellow laureates after receiving the Prize at at the Concert Hall, Stockholm, Sweden, Thursday Dec. 10, 2009. To the left of Muller is American medicine laureates Carol Greider and Jack Szostak, and to the right American Economics laureates Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson. (AP Photo/Scanpix Sweden, Jonas Ekstromer)
/ AP

Herta Mueller of Germany poses with her diploma and medal after receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature at the ceremony in the Stockholm Concert Hall, Stockholm, Sweden, Thursday Dec. 10, 2009. (AP Photo/ScanpixSweden/Jonas Ekstromer) — AP

STOCKHOLM 
A record five women were among the 13 people awarded Nobel Prizes on Thursday, including a writer who depicted life behind the Iron Curtain and two American researchers who showed how chromosomes protect themselves from degrading.

Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf presented the 10 million kronor ($1.4 million) prizes in chemistry, physics, medicine, literature and economics at an elegant ceremony at Stockholm concert hall. Hours earlier, President Barack Obama received the peace prize in Oslo.

The Stockholm ceremony was topped off by a lavish banquet in the capital's city hall - where laureates were served a three-course gala dinner whose menu is a carefully guarded secret.

The prizes were created in Alfred Nobel's 1895 will, which stipulated that they be granted to those who "have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind." They were first awarded in 1901.

Only 40 women have won the prestigious awards, including Marie Curie who was given the 1903 physics prize and the chemistry prize eight years later. In all, 802 individuals and 20 organizations have received Nobel Prizes over the years.

Romanian-born author Herta Mueller accepted the Nobel literature award for her critical depiction of life behind the Iron Curtain - work drawn largely from her personal experiences. Mueller's mother spent five years in a communist gulag, and the writer herself was tormented by the Securitate secret police because she refused to become their informant.

Mueller said in her banquet speech that her mother did not want her to attend secondary school in town. "She had wanted to me to be a seamstress in the village," Mueller said.

"She knew that I would be corrupted, destroyed in the town, and I was corrupted - I started to read books," Mueller said.

At the prize awarding ceremony earlier, Professor Anders Olsson of the Swedish Academy praised Mueller for her "great courage in uncompromisingly repudiating provincial repression and political terror."

"It is for the artistic value in that opposition that you merit this prize," he said. "Even though you have said that silence and suppression taught you to write, you have given us words that grip us deeply and directly."

Elinor Ostrom, 76, made history by being the first woman to receive the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, sharing it with fellow American Oliver Williamson for their work in economic governance. That prize is not one of the original Nobels, but was created in 1968 in Nobel's memory by the Swedish central bank.

Professor Tore Ellingsen, member of the Economics Prize Committee, said Ostrom and Williamson's analysis of economic governance would help all scientists make better use of their discoveries.

"Modern tools allowed us to fish more efficiently, but we used them to empty the seas. The invention of dynamite facilitated mining and building, but also allowed more devastating warfare," he said. "Good institutions are required for sustainable fishers as well as for lasting peace."

Americans Elizabeth H. Blackburn, 61, and Carol W. Greider, 48, shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with countryman Jack W. Szostak for their work in solving the mystery of how chromosomes protect themselves from degrading when cells divide.